Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, Jack Zipes Read Free Book Online Page A

the Neverlands vary a good deal. John’s, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents. But on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other’s nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. 9 We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
    Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and tablecloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutesbefore you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real. That is why there are night-lights.
    Occasionally in her travels through her children’s minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word
Peter.
She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael’s minds, while Wendy’s began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance.
    “Yes, he is rather cocky,” Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.
    “But who is he, my pet?”
    “He is Peter Pan, you know, Mother.”
    At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened. She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.
    “Besides,” she said to Wendy, “he would be grown up by this time.”
    “Oh no, he isn’t grown up,” Wendy assured her confidently, “and he is just my size.” She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn’t know how she knew it, she just knew it.
    Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. “Mark my words,” he said, “it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it will blow over.”
    But it would not blow over, and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs. Darling quite a shock.
    Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them. For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event happened, that when they were in the wood they met their dead father and had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning made a disquietingrevelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a tolerant smile:
    “I do believe it is that Peter again!”
    “Whatever do you mean, Wendy?”
    “It is so naughty of him not to wipe,” 10 Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child.
    She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn’t know how she knew, she just knew.
    “What nonsense you talk, precious! No one can get into the house without knocking.”
    “I think he comes in by the window,” she said.
    “My love, it is three floors up.”
    “Weren’t the leaves at the foot of the window, Mother?”
    It was quite